The Shannon Gaels GAA club gathered more than 400 members at the Terrace on the Park for its 13th Annual Dinner Dance, an end-of-the-year celebration of the club’s achievements. And the organization has achieved a lot.

Not only have the youth teams enjoyed success, but the Board of Directors has secured an important victory as well.

Monday marked the beginning of construction of the team’s new field at Frank Golden Park in College Point. Sean Price, chairman of Shannon Gaels GAA, hopes it can help the club continue to grow.

“We want to make it a state-of-the-art facility for the Shannon Gaels kids so they can play, compete and have fun,” Price said.

The project has received plenty of support from elected officials from all levels of government.

“The politicians of Queens, like Melinda Katz, have backed our project from the past. We have a lot of money from the Queens delegation,” Price said. “We’ve had huge, huge support from Congressman Joe Crowley, Senator Chuck Schumer, State Senator Tony Avella, Assemblyman Michael Simanowitz; everybody has helped us in this project.”

The project is broken down into four phases. The first phase, which is building a synthetic turf field for the youth leagues, is now underway. The other phases include building a field for adult players, seating area, parking lot and lights for the facility.

“We hope Phase One is finished so we can play in the spring,” Price said.

Price said club’s goal is to promote Gaelic games and Irish culture in Queens. He hopes that the youth can use sports as a connection to Ireland.

“From my kids to all the Shannon Gaels kids, they can play the sport and connect with Ireland. All the time we are competing and continuing to compete and creating a little sense of Irish-ness in Queens,” he said. “And now with social media and the Internet, kids here can see what’s going on in Ireland straightaway. There are no barriers anymore.”